Guest gavinelias Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 I am working on a laptop and have encountered a problem new to me. Any help on this would be appreciated. I registered so all the info should be right, but let me know if anything else is needed. A month ago, the display from boot was warbled, garbled, pixelated and corrupted. Windows would deliver a hard stop error and proceed to memory dump. Toshiba said it was a hardware issue because it is no longer under warranty. They were not aware that everything was fine prior to the install of SP2. This machine was buggy and SP2 crashed it hard. Immediately, vVidia wanted to update the drivers....and nothing has worked since. The entire screen is visible with rainbow pixels everywhere, some drivers are worse....some are a little better, but nothing has kept the display stable. I have removed and tried several drivers both from here and other sources. Now I need some serious help. Perhaps I need to further remove old drivers, reinstall Windows, try a modified driver....any ideas?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gavinelias Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 Also, in order to boot the laptop again, I forced an uninstall of SP2 and restored the system. That helped tremendously, but only in that I can now see the garbled display instead of the never-ending loop of blue and black I was seeing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 (edited) I suggest you back up data from the HD, then reformat and reinstall Windows... Installing Windows XP is pretty easy... I would suggest some good 66.xx or 67.xx drivers for the time being (after you reinstall), if you run into the black bar issue after installing them please look in the appropreate thread about Toshibas and black bars. If you have any other questions just ask. Bill Edit: This is the thread about black bars: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=5832 Edited December 16, 2004 by Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gavinelias Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Alrighty then... i've gotten stop errors and device failure errors and endless loop blue screens on both xp with sp1 and sp2 now after wiping the drive and re-installing xp a few times. looked good on all installations and in bios. no stop errors in installation, no screen weirdness. used one of the 66.xx drivers to start....thought positive. 20 minutes in to my first full-use boot... pixelation, shifting, garbled, blocks, bars, a weird fade and then blackness except for the bottom right corner of the task bar where there was a smattering of white pixels. i waited....a long time. nothing changed. i closed the lid and opened it and the screen came back but was flickering really fast sideways leaving trails of pixels back and forth so i forced a boot. booted in to vertical bars and the fast flickering multiple times. i tried using an external monitor and it produced slightly different effects but the same end result. forced boot from a hung system. i have adjusted hardware acceleration. been through a few additional drivers. the system/video/functionality is stable for an extended period of time only when booted in safe mode or ... when the system defaults the driver to an 800x600 4-bit (??) display. nothing strange happens with the display though it is pitiful to look at. The system is slower now in this mode, but seems stable.... What am I missing here?? Drivers, hardware, windows....? Thanks for any help!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 If your laptop was still under warrenty I would ask Toshiba to replace your graphics card for you. At this point all I can really say is try some more drivers and make sure you have all of the other neccesary updates. Like BIOS updates, ect. You might also look to see if Toshiba has a BIOS update for you. Try something other than 66 and 67 drivers, like the 65.73, that driver is supposed to be really stable. If you have updated everything and it still doesn't work it might be time to get a new graphics card... :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gavinelias Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Bill, Thanks for the suggestions! I am trying 65.73 now, and experiencing only mild issues thus far. *fingers crossed* If I do need to get a new video card, can I do this myself or will it have to go in? Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Go in as in send it in to the shop? Maybe, I do not know how to upgrade/replace cards on yours. (if its possible) On mine it is kinda hard to do, (I have not done it, but you should only attempt the upgrade yourself if you really know what you are doing and comfortable with it) If the card is broke, you should be able to send it in the get a new one put in, otherwise get a better card put in instead. :) Ask somebody else around here about what kind of cards you can put in yours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
®®® Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 you should only attempt the upgrade yourself if you really know what you are doing and comfortable with it... and if your warranty is over!Only Toshiba authorized Dealers/Support Shops with Technicians are allowed to do that, if you don't want to loose your warranty. And i doubt that there is a card/or replaceable chip installed at the mainboard. As far as i know it's soldered to mainboard. So if sending in to Autohirized technician center they will probably replace the whole mainboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gavinelias Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 No worries about the warranty, this happened the month after it expired. Toshiba said it would take 3 weeks and about 400 dollars. I'm not giving up yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
®®® Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 No worries about the warranty, this happened the month after it expired :) Then feel free to open it, take pictures and post them, as i'm more than interested how it actually looks inside. :) What about a fresh install of XP with SP1 only (though not recommended). Does this help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 I think that does help, didn't he say that the problems started with SP2? Even though I am not sure how SP2 messes up peoples computers, mine runs just fine and all the computers I have seen that got updated to it or came with it work just fine. You should stay at SP1 and see what you can do about it, you might have to install SP2 a different way than before. If that doesn't work you could switch to Linux.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 I would try a complete re-install of XP. I doubt it's SP2 causing the problem, but it might a combination of things. Get all the latest drivers, sound, Chipset, modem etc etc. Get DX 9c and full version of SP2. Install XP, now install SP2, then install a display driver any driver, 67.02 is a good start. DONT install anything else just what is above. If everything is fine then SP2 isn't to blame. Now you can install all the other drivers and DX9c etc, once all this is done and no problems install all your Apps. BACKUP anything you need for later,as it's best to format drive, then install XP. Hope this helps, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
®®® Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 The more advanced way would to slipstream SP2 in to your original Windows XP CD. A quick explanation here: Just copy the whole XP cd to a folder named "XPORIGINAL" move the complete SP2 file (>200MB, WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-"language".exe) to for example c:\ "language" is ENU or ENG then create a folder called "XPORIGINAL" in C:\ so then would have a folder C:\XPORIGINAL Then place a text file to C:\ open it and paste in: WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-"langugae".exe /integrate:C:\XPORIGINAL and save it as .cmd or .bat then doubleclick... then you need to burn it (including the bootsector file), but i would recommend using one of the countless tools in the WWW because of the bootability... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gavinelias Posted December 24, 2004 Report Share Posted December 24, 2004 Sorry it took a few days to get back... I have to say this is a hardware issue....as I can replicate it by pressing or using the area above the video card. I can also stabilize the entire system by cradling the bottom just so. After reading a lot of forums and threads, I found some very similar issues. It seems like an issue with the card with the card/mobo. I am going to keep looking for the bottom section of the laptop on auction sites, etc. In the meantime...I managed to achieve some bit of stability. Which is interesting.. But I also think SP2 exaccerbated the underlying hardware issue. And I think Direct X 9c might have given it some issues as well. I did a full fresh install over a clean drive with Sp1. Got artifacts in setup. :-( But only slight flickering and jitteriness in windows. I de-accelerated video card settings, used the factory driver....and the native resolution of 1400x1150 (or 1050?...i am tired). Now I can boot and keep it up for a bit without any crashing. I think an external keyboard would help as well. Since there is no warranty I plan to find the parts and give it a try when I can. I will give you pictures, no problem. Have a safe and happy christmas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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